LO: Sound Art

Adrien Kaeser’s “Weather Thingy“ is a sound and computational art that uses real-time climate-related data to create custom-built sound effect and control the musical instruments. Each sound sensor is attached to a weather station on a tripod microphone to measure speed, rain, direction of wind, as well as a brightness sensor to assess ambient levels of light. Then, the sensor transforms the weather-events into MIDI inputs, which adjusts settings like chorus, pan, decay and LFO through a custom instrument panel. I found it really intriguing that the device interprets the differing stimulation of weather and connects user’s input to produce a variety of audio effects on the keyboard with a pair of knobs and four audio buttons. I really admire how weather can be rendered into auditory technology and computational data, and how Kaeser simply collaborated with the environment to compose an interesting musical piece. Kaeser’s artistic sensibility surfaces when he first came up with the idea of musical weather contraption, and later actually plays the music in such a novel way along with the nature.

Reference: https://medium.com/@JeremySCook/hear-the-environment-with-this-weather-thingy-c0d0502fca0e